Still without power, Sandy towns face cold snap

Nov. 6, 2012
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Poll workers Diane DeStefano and Ernestine Dickerson bundle up against the cold while assisting voters in a tent in the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island on Election Day. Another storm is forecast to blow in Wednesday, and may cause more power outages or delays in getting power restored. / Allison Joyce, Getty Images

by Oren Dorell and Kevin McCoy
USA TODAY, USA TODAY

by Oren Dorell and Kevin McCoy
USA TODAY, USA TODAY

First Superstorm Sandy, then days without power or heat and now a nor'easter with near-freezing temperatures. Seems residents in New York and New Jersey can't get a break.

Relief workers are handing out blankets, providing shelter and serving hot food to thousands of people in both states. Meanwhile, another storm predicted to arrive on Wednesday threatens more high winds, rain and cold.

"It's a big concern," says Anne Marie Borrego, director of media relations for the American Red Cross. "This is a region that's already been battered by rain and wind and now there's a nor'easter approaching. It's adding insult to injury."

Public safety officials in New York and New Jersey prepared for temperatures forecast to dip to the low 30s with winds gusting to 55 mph Wednesday. Across the storm-ravaged area, more than a million customers remained without power Tuesday, mostly in New York and New Jersey, according to the Associated Press. That's down from a peak of 10 million outages last week.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday ordered precautionary closings of all parks, playgrounds and beaches from noon Wednesday until noon Thursday. The storm's cold temperatures could drop sleet on the branches of already weakened trees, he said.

The mayor also instructed contractors to secure construction sites and to cease all outdoor construction by noon Wednesday. City emergency workers would urge residents of a handful of the lowest-lying coastal areas to move to higher ground during the predicted Wednesday storm - but Bloomberg stopped short of ordering a general evacuation.

City environmental workers and Army Corps of Engineers personnel are examining city coastal areas that suffered the worst erosion during Sandy and trying to determine whether upgraded storm precautions are needed there.

Additionally, Bloomberg said police patrol cars would provide loudspeaker warnings about the new storm to already devastated areas, including Staten Island and the Rockaways.

New York State on Tuesday pre-placed search-and-rescue teams in the hardest-hit areas, said Howard Glaser, state operations chief and an adviser to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. National Weather Service forecasts as of noon showed the new storm may track east of the city, directing the strongest potential winds and flooding toward eastern Long Island, Glaser said.

The American Red Cross sent 80,000 blankets to its New York and New Jersey chapters, where it has provided overnight shelter to 9,000 people in 113 facilities, Borrego said.

Many more people are using the shelters to warm up during the day or to get a hot meal, she said. The Red Cross has provided more than a million warm meals and snacks in eight kitchens across the region since Sandy hit last week.

Borrego said word about the Red Cross' feeding-and-warming effort is spread in part by its vehicles that are on the streets delivering meals and supplies.

Two shelters set up in high schools in Toms River, N.J., are providing residents a place to eat, sleep and shower before going home for the day, and some just come in to warm up, shower and eat, said Toms River Police Chief Michael Mastronardy.

The cold hasn't been an issue yet, "but as the nights get colder it's becoming a concern," Mastronardy said. "We have areas now that it's been a week without electricity or heat."

Sandy's winds and floods knocked out utilities even in areas where power lines ran below ground, but getting information to residents hasn't been much of a problem thanks to the prevalence of smartphones, Mastronardy said.

"Thank God for smartphones," he said. "I know a lot of people don't have electrical power, but they know what's going on" and where to get help.

Anthony Serrao, 55, a Toms River resident who was riding in Mastronardy's car, said getting information has been the least of this troubles.

"We have generators where we don't have electric," Serrao said. "If you have access to the Internet, you have access to information."

Dan Halyburton, a Red Cross spokesman located in Long Island, N.Y., said he has been focused on telling people not to stay in a home that's not safe because of prior damage or because it's really cold.

In a lot of coastal communities, flooding is worse than before, but still nothing new, Halyburton said.

"People feel they've been here before," he said.

In some cases, people are staying in the dry upper story of a house whose first floor flooded, or in a house where the propane gas to the stove is still on and providing the only heat.

"Of course, a stove is not meant to heat a home," he says.

The Red Cross generally does not distribute many blankets, because "we don't want to encourage people to stay in an unsafe home," he said. "But we've been given blankets and when someone has a special need we do provide blankets."